Thursday, January 31, 2008

Does anyone really question whether waterboarding is torture? Read this and see what you think and then come back.

This really doesn't address the question, does it? Waterboarding doesn't leave a physical mark, it won't kill a person, and it works effectively. It is coercive. The person feels like he will die and will spill the beans, if he has any, quickly. To me, it's torture.

The question, though is this: Is torture worth it to prevent further catastrophe? If you caught an operative who knew the placement of a dirty bomb set to go off in a city, would you waterboard him? I would. Without guilt. I'd have some anxiety though.

It becomes a question of how accurate your information is about the dude you're about to torture. Torture in the hands of the sadistic and paranoid is one person's pain for another person's pleasure. That is wrong. And everyone advocating for no torture (which means only America or the Western countries don't torture, because we know Al Qaeda tortures and waterboarding is the least of their techniques) envisions some sinister government operative pulling out his briefcase of horror, chuckling in delight. This is a worrisome picture, indeed.

An act of torture to prevent the deaths of soldiers or citizens is not immoral. To do nothing, to let people die in the name of a principle is to put the principle--torture is wrong--above life itself. The life a scumbag terrorist is not valued over the lives of scores or hundreds or thousands of free people.

That's the uncomfortable truth under all the babbling about whether torture is wrong or not. Of course it's wrong. Mass murder is wrong, too. Those against the use of torture in all cases seem to be willing to detach themselves from the consequences of their actions. Nope, they're not responsible for the murder, when the murderer is sitting there with the information and they could stop it.

In a free country, we're all responsible. I think citizens have come to that uncomfortable place. You don't hear people lamenting a terrorist getting waterboarded to prevent death. Ok, maybe some at the fringes lament it, but most people are pragmatic. We're at war with an enemy who has no regard for life. So, he can forfeit his, if necessary, to preserve the lives of those who value it. Or, he can just bear the psychological scars inherent in being waterboarded. Add the trauma to the rest of his demented psyche.